Half Life – 46 – teenager brain
September 17th, 2021
It takes a teenaged brain to consider the bus turning up on time to be a good explanation as to why he missed it. No matter how detailed the planning it is impossible to factor in that level of incompetence. We tried, going over how the day would run and even getting him to repeat it back. The first step had involved him getting home on the usual bus rather than calling his parents, who were forty miles away pulling into a disabled parking space outside a hospital, to tell us the on-time transport had let him down. Older Boy’s shock that his not so cleverly timed mucking about with two of his friends ended in them all watching the rear of the bus heading into the distance with three empty seats.
Disappointment that the parental cavalry would not ride in to save the day grew into mild panic when he was reminded where we were and why. A cross country walk of about an hour and a half was looking like the only way home. Sadly, even with satnav and a map on his phone the chances he would head off in the right direction, let alone make it home, were slender. His courage, and that of his friends, to try it was great to see and it would have done them all good, in an old-fashioned Victorian parenting way, but we asked them to try to think of alternatives first. As luck would have it, with the final percentages on their phone batteries ebbing away, a set of long-suffering, almost local, grandparents of a fellow stranded schoolboy answered and agreed to get them and play taxi. One of the many pleasures of countryside living is to be mostly undisturbed by public transport.
Random, unintended, acts of teenage sabotage towards medical arrangements didn’t end there. Two days later, setting off later than planned for a much-needed date with the radiotherapy machines at The Churchill Hospital, Older Boy called from school. Could we get him, he had hurt his wrist during games, and he wanted to come home? Un-sympathy flowed from his father as I asked how bad it really was and if they had put ice on it. Was it broken, as if not then he should get back to class as no need to go to A&E. He hung up saying it would be fine.
Guilt kicked in minutes later and the school nurse provided better information. It was in one piece with no jutting bone edges oozing blood through the skin. They had not even strapped it up. A sprain, probably a nasty one, but nothing more. As it turned out, it was not serious and would have taken a few days to recover had he not chosen to leap about on his bed the day afterwards, falling off and making is significantly worse and more painful. The levels of parental sympathy did not increase much.
Despite the best efforts of Older Boy to escape school and see what hospitals look like from the inside, the planned appointments were made and the treatments completed. As expected, the attack from Nobby came on Friday. Two days is about normal and the flair-up from the two places zapped by the radiotherapy arrived on time, like some buses, and together. Pain and fatigue skyrocketed for forty-eight hours, taking me off my feet and to a rare day shuffling between bed, bathroom, and sofa. The other revenge stroke from Nobby was to hit my vocal cords as a retaliation against the chest shot we hit him with. A reward for the family, days of only being able to whisper meant they had even better excuses to ignore what is said to them.
Snuggled up on the sofa for the day, wrapped in a blanket with a soothing mug of green tea, is not a target habitat. For many it sounds like bliss but, when forced into it, the foreboding is that it’s what the future might be like; that and the incontinence. Trash television plays a vital role in distraction and pain relief. Being able to drop off in the middle of an episode, miss ten minutes, and on opening your eyes realising you have not failed to keep up with the plot is a special type of drama designed for a morphine-heads. ‘Justified’, a series on Prime, is at just the right level of brainlessness, with a Clint Eastwood copy defeating legion after legion of Kentucky hillbillies. A body count to put Midsomer Murders to shame, obviously with no consequences, it’s easy to forget which episode you are in and simply re-watch them.
Released from pain flair-up, the days filled with appointment planning, waiting for responses, and making sure the oasis of calm planned for the end of the week was going to happen. Twenty-four hours in one of the loveliest UK hotels, hidden in the New Forest. A very late birthday celebration for The Wife, the worries that we would need to change or even cancel followed us about over the past weeks. We made it, we ate the most glorious food, took full advantage of an extensive fine wine by the glass selection, and slept in the softest, most cushion covered, bed possible. A blink of bliss without the dog, hospitals, concerns, or a teenaged brain to contend with. Before the storm, the calm.
Teenagers - so delightfully oblivious - got to love them! Even though I had read about it I was totally unprepared for the ongoing after effects of radiotherapy.
If you haven’t watched it, Clarkson’s Farm on Prime is excellent light relief. Never before been a fan of JC but seeing him learning agriculture by trial and error brightened a couple of otherwise dreary days!
Even Claudia said you absolutely nailed the teenager brain description :-)